There you are, surfing the world wide web, minding your own business when suddenly, you get a pop-up window telling you that you have severe virus infections and the only way to remove them is to get to a special website.
 If you click on the link it takes you to a website where you are told you need to buy their software in order to remove the infections from your computer.
 DON'T DO IT!  The only thing that will happen if you give them your credit card information is that they will take your money and possibly target you for identity theft.
    I have an antivirus program, why did it not find these infections?  That is a question we all ask ourselves when this happens.
 The truth is, you don't have a virus for the antivirus program to detect.
 These pop-ups are just lies to get you to give them your credit card.
 The pop-ups are generated by a rogue program that is technically called "malware".
 This bit of code gets on your computer from other files that you downloaded or can get in from questionable websites and banner ads that you click on.
  Once it gets in, it installs itself deeply and will not show up in the add/remove program list.
  Some common versions of this kind of program are called "Win XP Antivirus 2008/2009", "CoreGuard" "Virus Remover 2008" and "Power Antivirus 2009".
 They are all the same, they look almost identical except for the name at the top of the window and they are all designed to get you to give them your credit card info.
  So what do you do now?  You need a program designed to remove this kind of thing.
 You need a program that is designed to work with your antivirus program to plug the holes in your security that it doesn't.
  This program is called "Malwarebytes" and can be downloaded for FREE.
 Once you install it, simply run a scan or two and it will remove these rogue programs and you will not be bothered by those pop-ups again.